Executive Director, Coin Center
Jerry Brito is executive director of Coin Center, a non-profit research and advocacy center focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency technologies such as Bitcoin.
Now, steel yourself for some serious signaling and credentialism:
Jerry lives in Annandale, Virginia, with his wife Kathleen, daughter Penny Lane, and their dog Jerkface.
Commissioner, United States Securities and Exchange Commission
Hester M. Peirce was appointed by President Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on January 11, 2018.
Prior to joining the SEC, Commissioner Peirce conducted research on the regulation of financial markets at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She was a Senior Counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where she advised Ranking Member Richard Shelby and other members of the Committee on securities issues. Commissioner Peirce served as counsel to SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins. She also worked as a Staff Attorney in the SEC’s Division of Investment Management. Commissioner Peirce was an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) and clerked for Judge Roger Andewelt on the Court of Federal Claims.
Commissioner Peirce earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Case Western Reserve University and her JD from Yale Law School.
Director, Financial Regulation and Corporate Governance, Center for American Progress
Todd Phillips is the director of financial regulation and corporate governance at American Progress. He has worked on issues as diverse as consumer financial protection, derivatives and securities market structure, bank capital and prudential regulation, and the laws governing agency rulemaking and adjudication. Phillips has experience in both Congress and the executive branch, having served as an attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the Oversight and Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Phillips’ writing has been published by The American Prospect, the Yale Journal on Regulation, and the Administrative Law Review, among others. Phillips holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in economics and political science from Arizona State University.
Co-Founder and CEO, Messari
Ryan Selkis is co-founder and CEO of Messari, a leading crypto asset data and research company. Prior to founding Messari, he was an entrepreneur-in-residence at ConsenSys, and was on the founding teams of Digital Currency Group, where he managed the firm’s seed investing activity, and CoinDesk, where he led the company’s restructuring and annual Consensus conferences. He has been an investor and prolific writer in the crypto industry since 2013.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law J.W. Verret joined the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University faculty in 2008. In 2013, he took leave for two years to serve as the Chief Economist and Senior Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. He received his JD and MA in Public Policy from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, respectively, in 2006. While in law school, Professor Verret served an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics at the Harvard Program on Corporate Governance under the guidance of Prof. Lucian Bebchuk.
Professor Verret then served as a law clerk for Vice-Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Prior to joining the faculty at Scalia Law, Professor Verret was an associate in the SEC Enforcement Defense Practice Group at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on corporate law topics, including Delaware's Guidance, co-written with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court. His academic work has been featured in the Yale Journal on Regulation, The Business Lawyer, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Virginia Law and Business Review. Professor Verret was selected by the Northwestern Law School Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth for a 2009-2010 Searle-Kaufmann Research Fellowship.
Professor Verret is also a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center Working Group on Financial Markets, where he regularly briefs Congressional staff, members of Congress, SEC Commissioners and other financial regulatory agencies on financial regulation topics. He also directs the Corporate Federalism Initiative, where he obtains research grants for a network of students and faculty scholars who study the division between states and the federal government as sources of corporate law. Professor Verret has been invited to testify before various House and Senate Committees four times during the financial crisis of 2009 regarding all of the central provisions of the Obama Administration's 2009 financial regulatory reform proposals. For a full list of Professor Verret's C-Span appearances, including testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, see http://www.c-spanvideo.org/jwverret.
Professor Verret has been an invited panelist for various television appearances, including an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Professor Verret has been quoted in various media on financial regulation and corporate law topics, including the New York Times, CNN Money, the CNN Political Ticker, CNBC, ABC News, Investor's Business Daily, ESPN.com, The American Banker, The American Lawyer, The Huffington Post, CBS.com, and AP News. Professor Verret's op-eds have been featured in Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The Orange County Register, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Verret is also a regular guest contributor to three of the most noted corporate law and financial regulation law blogs: the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Forum, Deallawyers.com, and The Conglomerate.
Executive Director, Coin Center
Jerry Brito is executive director of Coin Center, a non-profit research and advocacy center focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency technologies such as Bitcoin.
Now, steel yourself for some serious signaling and credentialism:
Jerry lives in Annandale, Virginia, with his wife Kathleen, daughter Penny Lane, and their dog Jerkface.
Commissioner, United States Securities and Exchange Commission
Hester M. Peirce was appointed by President Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on January 11, 2018.
Prior to joining the SEC, Commissioner Peirce conducted research on the regulation of financial markets at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She was a Senior Counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where she advised Ranking Member Richard Shelby and other members of the Committee on securities issues. Commissioner Peirce served as counsel to SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins. She also worked as a Staff Attorney in the SEC’s Division of Investment Management. Commissioner Peirce was an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) and clerked for Judge Roger Andewelt on the Court of Federal Claims.
Commissioner Peirce earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Case Western Reserve University and her JD from Yale Law School.
Director, Financial Regulation and Corporate Governance, Center for American Progress
Todd Phillips is the director of financial regulation and corporate governance at American Progress. He has worked on issues as diverse as consumer financial protection, derivatives and securities market structure, bank capital and prudential regulation, and the laws governing agency rulemaking and adjudication. Phillips has experience in both Congress and the executive branch, having served as an attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the Oversight and Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Phillips’ writing has been published by The American Prospect, the Yale Journal on Regulation, and the Administrative Law Review, among others. Phillips holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in economics and political science from Arizona State University.
Co-Founder and CEO, Messari
Ryan Selkis is co-founder and CEO of Messari, a leading crypto asset data and research company. Prior to founding Messari, he was an entrepreneur-in-residence at ConsenSys, and was on the founding teams of Digital Currency Group, where he managed the firm’s seed investing activity, and CoinDesk, where he led the company’s restructuring and annual Consensus conferences. He has been an investor and prolific writer in the crypto industry since 2013.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law J.W. Verret joined the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University faculty in 2008. In 2013, he took leave for two years to serve as the Chief Economist and Senior Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. He received his JD and MA in Public Policy from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, respectively, in 2006. While in law school, Professor Verret served an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics at the Harvard Program on Corporate Governance under the guidance of Prof. Lucian Bebchuk.
Professor Verret then served as a law clerk for Vice-Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Prior to joining the faculty at Scalia Law, Professor Verret was an associate in the SEC Enforcement Defense Practice Group at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on corporate law topics, including Delaware's Guidance, co-written with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court. His academic work has been featured in the Yale Journal on Regulation, The Business Lawyer, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Virginia Law and Business Review. Professor Verret was selected by the Northwestern Law School Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth for a 2009-2010 Searle-Kaufmann Research Fellowship.
Professor Verret is also a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center Working Group on Financial Markets, where he regularly briefs Congressional staff, members of Congress, SEC Commissioners and other financial regulatory agencies on financial regulation topics. He also directs the Corporate Federalism Initiative, where he obtains research grants for a network of students and faculty scholars who study the division between states and the federal government as sources of corporate law. Professor Verret has been invited to testify before various House and Senate Committees four times during the financial crisis of 2009 regarding all of the central provisions of the Obama Administration's 2009 financial regulatory reform proposals. For a full list of Professor Verret's C-Span appearances, including testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, see http://www.c-spanvideo.org/jwverret.
Professor Verret has been an invited panelist for various television appearances, including an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Professor Verret has been quoted in various media on financial regulation and corporate law topics, including the New York Times, CNN Money, the CNN Political Ticker, CNBC, ABC News, Investor's Business Daily, ESPN.com, The American Banker, The American Lawyer, The Huffington Post, CBS.com, and AP News. Professor Verret's op-eds have been featured in Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The Orange County Register, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Verret is also a regular guest contributor to three of the most noted corporate law and financial regulation law blogs: the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Forum, Deallawyers.com, and The Conglomerate.
Chief Legal Officer, Castle Island Ventures
Gus Coldebella is the Chief Legal Officer of Castle Island Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing in blockchain technology, where he handles legal, regulatory, policy, and compliance matters for the firm.
Over a career spanning private practice, government, and technology, he has served as a law firm partner, prosecutor, senior federal official, general counsel, and venture capital partner. He previously served as acting general counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration, leading a team of 1,700 lawyers, and focusing on all major security issues confronting the nation. His private-sector leadership roles have included chief legal officer of Circle; general counsel of Paradigm; partner at True Ventures; and partner in Goodwin Procter’s litigation and investigations practice.
Coldebella holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School and a B.A. from Colgate University, where he later served as vice chair of the Board of Trustees and president of the Alumni Council. He teaches “Artificial Intelligence: Law and Policy” at Boston College Law School.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Eric Kadel is engaged in a wide variety of corporate, transactional and regulatory matters. He is a member of the Firm’s Corporate and Finance, Financial Services, Investment Management, Alternative Investment Management, Cybersecurity, and Commodities, Futures and Derivatives Groups. With regard to financings, Mr. Kadel regularly represents participants in capital markets transactions, and dealers and end users in connection with structuring and documenting a wide variety of swaps and other derivatives, including equity, credit default and commodity swaps, options and forwards. Mr. Kadel’s work in the investment management area includes advising public and private investment companies and investment advisers on a wide variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance and other matters, including registration and regulation. Mr. Kadel also advises clients of the Firm regarding developments in the laws regulating the financial services industry and on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Kadel is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
In addition, Mr. Kadel is one of the principal partners in the Firm’s International Trade and Investment practice. He counsels and represents clients on questions about U.S. economic sanctions, including those administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), United States antiboycott requirements under the Export Administration Regulations administered and enforced by the Commerce Department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance within the Bureau of Industry and Security, Bank Secrecy Act/anti‐money laundering laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Kadel’s practice includes analysis of proposed transactions and business relationships; due diligence and design and review of compliance procedures and strategies; and internal investigations, voluntary disclosures and government enforcement actions. Mr. Kadel also regularly advises clients regarding questions arising under Exon-Florio and the transaction review process administered by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), and has represented clients before CFIUS on many national security reviews.
Senior Adviser, Crito Capital
Dr. Oonagh McDonald, CBE is currently a senior adviser to Crito Capital, a private placement company based in New York.
A former British Member of Parliament, she became an international expert in financial regulation, after losing her seat in the General Election, 1987. She worked with the Asian Development Bank, advising regulatory authorities in a number of countries, including Sri Lanka and Indonesia. More recently, she has worked with USAID in Ukraine and Moldova. She has served as a non-executive director on the board of both financial services companies and regulatory authorities. In 1998, she was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire), a national honor by the Queen for her work in financial regulation.
She is the author of numerous articles and seven books, of which the most recent are: “Holding bankers to account: A decade of market manipulation, regulatory failures and regulatory reforms” (Manchester University Press, 2019) and “Cryptocurrencies: Money, Trust and Regulation” (Agenda Publishing, 2021).
K2 Integrity, Global Co-Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer
The Honorable Juan Zarate is the global co-managing partner and chief strategy officer for the global consulting firm, K2 Integrity. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Board of Consilient, an innovative new fintech.
He is the chairman and co-founder of the Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS), and a senior fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center. He was a visiting lecturer in law at the Harvard Law School for eight years and is a published author, including his books “Treasury’s War” (2013) and “Forging Democracy” (1994).
Mr. Zarate sits on the boards of various organizations, including Northwestern Mutual, Cambridge Quantum Computing North America Holdings, Guardian Space Technologies Systems, and the Director’s Advisory Board for the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Since 2014, Mr. Zarate has served as an independent advisor to Coinbase, the largest virtual asset service provider in the United States. With two appointments by Pope Francis,Mr. Zarate sat on the board of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority for over five years; the Boston Dynamics board for over three years; and for seven years, he was the U.S. advisor on HSBC’s Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee (overseeing remediation of the bank’s anti-money laundering system and adherence with the U.S.DOJ deferred prosecution agreement) and remains an advisor to HSBC’s Group Risk Committee.
Mr. Zarate served as the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism (“counterterrorism czar”) from 2005 to 2009, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the U.S. counterterrorism strategy and policies related to transnational security threats, including hostage-taking, piracy, anti-money laundering, kleptocracy, transnational organized crime, and international energy infrastructure protection,. He was responsible for conceiving and leading major initiatives in the post 9/11 period, including the establishment of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT).
He was the first ever assistant secretary of the treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes. In this role, he led the post-9/11 anti-money laundering and sanctions regime expansion in the United States; helped develop the international standards for AML/CFT and proliferation finance; supervised the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Treasury’s Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture (TEOAF); drove the innovative use of the Treasury’s national security–related powers and ultimately the establishment of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). He has also led some of the largest asset recovery ventures in history, including the return of over $3 billion in Iraqi assets.
Mr. Zarate is a former federal terrorism prosecutor, prior to 9/11, serving on the prosecution teams in the East Africa bombings and USS Cole cases, among others. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, and a Rotary Fellow at the Universidad de Salamanca. At Harvard College, he won the John P. Reardon Award, as the best male student athlete.
Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters, ConsenSys Software
Bill Hughes is senior counsel and director of global regulatory matters for ConsenSys Software, the leading Ethereum blockchain software company. Bill focuses on the diverse and ever evolving crypto global regulatory landscape, and the legal and public policy issues with which ConsenSys and the broader crypto ecosystem is grappling.
Bill joined ConsenSys after serving as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, where he managed, among other things, the Department’s work on prospective regulations, legislative proposals, and policies across a broad spectrum of legal and operational issues. He worked closely with the White House and other federal agencies on regulatory and policy initiatives and coordinated DOJ’s law enforcement response to COVID-19-related consumer fraud and money laundering. Bill also has served at the White House, where he oversaw various operational components. Bill began his career by clerking for a federal judge in New York and litigating with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Bill received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law and his BA from Vanderbilt University.
Executive Director, Coin Center
Jerry Brito is executive director of Coin Center, a non-profit research and advocacy center focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency technologies such as Bitcoin.
Now, steel yourself for some serious signaling and credentialism:
Jerry lives in Annandale, Virginia, with his wife Kathleen, daughter Penny Lane, and their dog Jerkface.
Director, Financial Regulation and Corporate Governance, Center for American Progress
Todd Phillips is the director of financial regulation and corporate governance at American Progress. He has worked on issues as diverse as consumer financial protection, derivatives and securities market structure, bank capital and prudential regulation, and the laws governing agency rulemaking and adjudication. Phillips has experience in both Congress and the executive branch, having served as an attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the Oversight and Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Phillips’ writing has been published by The American Prospect, the Yale Journal on Regulation, and the Administrative Law Review, among others. Phillips holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in economics and political science from Arizona State University.
Co-Founder and CEO, Messari
Ryan Selkis is co-founder and CEO of Messari, a leading crypto asset data and research company. Prior to founding Messari, he was an entrepreneur-in-residence at ConsenSys, and was on the founding teams of Digital Currency Group, where he managed the firm’s seed investing activity, and CoinDesk, where he led the company’s restructuring and annual Consensus conferences. He has been an investor and prolific writer in the crypto industry since 2013.
Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Associate Professor of Law J.W. Verret joined the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University faculty in 2008. In 2013, he took leave for two years to serve as the Chief Economist and Senior Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. He received his JD and MA in Public Policy from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, respectively, in 2006. While in law school, Professor Verret served an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics at the Harvard Program on Corporate Governance under the guidance of Prof. Lucian Bebchuk.
Professor Verret then served as a law clerk for Vice-Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Prior to joining the faculty at Scalia Law, Professor Verret was an associate in the SEC Enforcement Defense Practice Group at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on corporate law topics, including Delaware's Guidance, co-written with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court. His academic work has been featured in the Yale Journal on Regulation, The Business Lawyer, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and the Virginia Law and Business Review. Professor Verret was selected by the Northwestern Law School Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth for a 2009-2010 Searle-Kaufmann Research Fellowship.
Professor Verret is also a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center Working Group on Financial Markets, where he regularly briefs Congressional staff, members of Congress, SEC Commissioners and other financial regulatory agencies on financial regulation topics. He also directs the Corporate Federalism Initiative, where he obtains research grants for a network of students and faculty scholars who study the division between states and the federal government as sources of corporate law. Professor Verret has been invited to testify before various House and Senate Committees four times during the financial crisis of 2009 regarding all of the central provisions of the Obama Administration's 2009 financial regulatory reform proposals. For a full list of Professor Verret's C-Span appearances, including testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, see http://www.c-spanvideo.org/jwverret.
Professor Verret has been an invited panelist for various television appearances, including an interview on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Professor Verret has been quoted in various media on financial regulation and corporate law topics, including the New York Times, CNN Money, the CNN Political Ticker, CNBC, ABC News, Investor's Business Daily, ESPN.com, The American Banker, The American Lawyer, The Huffington Post, CBS.com, and AP News. Professor Verret's op-eds have been featured in Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The Orange County Register, and The Wall Street Journal. Professor Verret is also a regular guest contributor to three of the most noted corporate law and financial regulation law blogs: the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Forum, Deallawyers.com, and The Conglomerate.
Chief Legal Officer, Castle Island Ventures
Gus Coldebella is the Chief Legal Officer of Castle Island Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing in blockchain technology, where he handles legal, regulatory, policy, and compliance matters for the firm.
Over a career spanning private practice, government, and technology, he has served as a law firm partner, prosecutor, senior federal official, general counsel, and venture capital partner. He previously served as acting general counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration, leading a team of 1,700 lawyers, and focusing on all major security issues confronting the nation. His private-sector leadership roles have included chief legal officer of Circle; general counsel of Paradigm; partner at True Ventures; and partner in Goodwin Procter’s litigation and investigations practice.
Coldebella holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School and a B.A. from Colgate University, where he later served as vice chair of the Board of Trustees and president of the Alumni Council. He teaches “Artificial Intelligence: Law and Policy” at Boston College Law School.
Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters, ConsenSys Software
Bill Hughes is senior counsel and director of global regulatory matters for ConsenSys Software, the leading Ethereum blockchain software company. Bill focuses on the diverse and ever evolving crypto global regulatory landscape, and the legal and public policy issues with which ConsenSys and the broader crypto ecosystem is grappling.
Bill joined ConsenSys after serving as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, where he managed, among other things, the Department’s work on prospective regulations, legislative proposals, and policies across a broad spectrum of legal and operational issues. He worked closely with the White House and other federal agencies on regulatory and policy initiatives and coordinated DOJ’s law enforcement response to COVID-19-related consumer fraud and money laundering. Bill also has served at the White House, where he oversaw various operational components. Bill began his career by clerking for a federal judge in New York and litigating with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Bill received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law and his BA from Vanderbilt University.
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Eric Kadel is engaged in a wide variety of corporate, transactional and regulatory matters. He is a member of the Firm’s Corporate and Finance, Financial Services, Investment Management, Alternative Investment Management, Cybersecurity, and Commodities, Futures and Derivatives Groups. With regard to financings, Mr. Kadel regularly represents participants in capital markets transactions, and dealers and end users in connection with structuring and documenting a wide variety of swaps and other derivatives, including equity, credit default and commodity swaps, options and forwards. Mr. Kadel’s work in the investment management area includes advising public and private investment companies and investment advisers on a wide variety of transactional, regulatory, compliance and other matters, including registration and regulation. Mr. Kadel also advises clients of the Firm regarding developments in the laws regulating the financial services industry and on cybersecurity issues. Mr. Kadel is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
In addition, Mr. Kadel is one of the principal partners in the Firm’s International Trade and Investment practice. He counsels and represents clients on questions about U.S. economic sanctions, including those administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), United States antiboycott requirements under the Export Administration Regulations administered and enforced by the Commerce Department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance within the Bureau of Industry and Security, Bank Secrecy Act/anti‐money laundering laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Mr. Kadel’s practice includes analysis of proposed transactions and business relationships; due diligence and design and review of compliance procedures and strategies; and internal investigations, voluntary disclosures and government enforcement actions. Mr. Kadel also regularly advises clients regarding questions arising under Exon-Florio and the transaction review process administered by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), and has represented clients before CFIUS on many national security reviews.
Senior Adviser, Crito Capital
Dr. Oonagh McDonald, CBE is currently a senior adviser to Crito Capital, a private placement company based in New York.
A former British Member of Parliament, she became an international expert in financial regulation, after losing her seat in the General Election, 1987. She worked with the Asian Development Bank, advising regulatory authorities in a number of countries, including Sri Lanka and Indonesia. More recently, she has worked with USAID in Ukraine and Moldova. She has served as a non-executive director on the board of both financial services companies and regulatory authorities. In 1998, she was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire), a national honor by the Queen for her work in financial regulation.
She is the author of numerous articles and seven books, of which the most recent are: “Holding bankers to account: A decade of market manipulation, regulatory failures and regulatory reforms” (Manchester University Press, 2019) and “Cryptocurrencies: Money, Trust and Regulation” (Agenda Publishing, 2021).
K2 Integrity, Global Co-Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer
The Honorable Juan Zarate is the global co-managing partner and chief strategy officer for the global consulting firm, K2 Integrity. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Board of Consilient, an innovative new fintech.
He is the chairman and co-founder of the Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS), and a senior fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center. He was a visiting lecturer in law at the Harvard Law School for eight years and is a published author, including his books “Treasury’s War” (2013) and “Forging Democracy” (1994).
Mr. Zarate sits on the boards of various organizations, including Northwestern Mutual, Cambridge Quantum Computing North America Holdings, Guardian Space Technologies Systems, and the Director’s Advisory Board for the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Since 2014, Mr. Zarate has served as an independent advisor to Coinbase, the largest virtual asset service provider in the United States. With two appointments by Pope Francis,Mr. Zarate sat on the board of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority for over five years; the Boston Dynamics board for over three years; and for seven years, he was the U.S. advisor on HSBC’s Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee (overseeing remediation of the bank’s anti-money laundering system and adherence with the U.S.DOJ deferred prosecution agreement) and remains an advisor to HSBC’s Group Risk Committee.
Mr. Zarate served as the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism (“counterterrorism czar”) from 2005 to 2009, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the U.S. counterterrorism strategy and policies related to transnational security threats, including hostage-taking, piracy, anti-money laundering, kleptocracy, transnational organized crime, and international energy infrastructure protection,. He was responsible for conceiving and leading major initiatives in the post 9/11 period, including the establishment of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT).
He was the first ever assistant secretary of the treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes. In this role, he led the post-9/11 anti-money laundering and sanctions regime expansion in the United States; helped develop the international standards for AML/CFT and proliferation finance; supervised the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Treasury’s Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture (TEOAF); drove the innovative use of the Treasury’s national security–related powers and ultimately the establishment of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). He has also led some of the largest asset recovery ventures in history, including the return of over $3 billion in Iraqi assets.
Mr. Zarate is a former federal terrorism prosecutor, prior to 9/11, serving on the prosecution teams in the East Africa bombings and USS Cole cases, among others. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, and a Rotary Fellow at the Universidad de Salamanca. At Harvard College, he won the John P. Reardon Award, as the best male student athlete.
Cryptocurrency and the Courts
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Regulating the New Crypto Ecosystem: Necessary Regulation or Crippling Future Innovation?
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